Tempestas
by Padua Burke
Summary: Leticia eyed the passage with interest. Tempestas: Roman goddess of the storm, bad weather, the tempest. Erik/OC.
1. Chapter 1

****Alright, for everybody who read this, yes it has been re-uploaded. :) That being said, yes this story is a Erik/OC one, and yes she is a mutant that can control the weather. But don't worry! My character isn't a Storm copycat! She is actually based off of the character Magda, of whom was Erik's wife in the comics, as well as the mother of Pietro and Wanda (I think). Please give this story a chance!

-Padua Burke

Disclaimer: I own nothing. Except Leticia.

Happy reading.

* * *

><p><strong>The Lady of Westchester<strong>

_2003, Westchester, New York_

"It has to be done soon," thought Leticia busily. "Wanda will want to make a grand entrance for her and Pietro's birthday celebration. Oh I hope she adores it." The fabric lying in her lap was a deep, yet bright, scarlet being sewn together into a little dress, her whole focus on every stitch, intent on making it absolutely perfect.

In the midst of admiring her handiwork, while fretting about what sort of pattern she should make with the scarlet rhinestones on the hem of the skirt portion of the dress, Leticia was suddenly aware, that in some point and time in her life, she had done this before. Just as she began to rummage about in the myriad of memories she had acquired in the last forty-two years, Leticia looked down at her sewing once more, and noticed something that made her catch her breath. Her hands. They...they were no longer weathered and wrinkled, but smooth and supple. They were the hands of a young maid, and certainly not one of an old woman such as her.

She looked up to see if anything else around her decided to change without her permission and found that, yes, _everything_ had changed.

In fact, Leticia highly doubted she was in the same room she vaguely remembered falling asleep in. Either that or this had to be the best practical joke the students had ever had the courage to pull on an instructor at the mansion. Leticia snorted softly to herself at the possibility while examining every inch of her surroundings in bewilderment.

She found that she was perched snugly on an enormous four-poster bed, the wood of the headboard and the arms that held up a canopy above her rich with brown, nearly black tones. The pillows and blankets strewn about her were all bright red, and Leticia couldn't help but think of lavishly wrapped gifts at Christmas when inspecting them.

The curtains drawn back neatly from the bed were made of thick cascades of silk, and if any ornament or piece of furniture didn't happen to be red, it was the brightest gold.

"What on Earth...," she murmured to herself, nearly giggling at this garish room, yet worried as she still did not know where she was. "Certainly not the mansion," she decided, "Charles would never put so much effort into decorating a room to look so ostentatious, perhaps...," then it hit her like an anvil falling gracelessly on some cartoon nitwit. If her hands had the appearance of youth...Leticia searched the place for a mirror. She didn't have to look for long; at the foot of the bed there sat a gigantic dresser, made of the same wood as the bed, and just above there hung a mirror that took all of her reflection in. The sight of herself left her speechless.

She indeed was no longer a little old woman, but now looked as if she were in her mid-twenties. Her eyes no longer took on that slightly clouded tint that old age had brought, but were now sharp, dark, and clear. Her face had not one wrinkle or line, the skin about her eyes, cheeks, and forehead now smoothed, her lips no longer thin but now full and rosy.

Leticia shut her eyes tightly for a moment or two, let out the breath she was holding, then opened them again. No, still young. But how? For a moment she thought that the woman in the mirror was her daughter Wanda, as it was apparent from the time she was a girl entering adolescence that she looked so much like her mother that even Erik was startled from time to time by their similarities.

She edged closer to the mirror to inspect herself more thoroughly.

No, it was definitely her and not Wanda.

Although she could have easily been mistaken as Leticia's sister by the way she herself looked currently, Wanda's profile was a tad sharper than her own, her jaw and cheekbones reminiscent of Erik. Wanda's eyes were slightly different as well, more almond shaped than Leticia's wide orbs; but it did no good to rifle through the details of her daughter's face as it did not help her answer the questions as to where she was and what was going on. Leticia was so absorbed in studying her face that she at first didn't notice the slight glimmer of light seemingly at the corner of her eye. Her gaze moved to scan the rest of her reflection and she finally saw what was causing the slight shimmer floating across her vision.

Atop her head sat a crown, or a tiara of sorts, and it was by no means a fake plastic one used at little girls' birthday parties to satisfy their desire to be a princess.

Leticia, back to when she was still sewing Wanda's scarlet dress, thought that she had felt a slight weight being pressed down on her head, but ignored it as the feeling was nearly nonexistent. Now she could feel this piece of headgear's full weight, as though it wished to make its presence known to her, the light of the room's lamps causing it to glow eerily against the backdrop of gold and red. Leticia couldn't tell exactly what it was made of, but she knew for certain that it was a metal; it was too dark to be silver, but it was also too light to be steel.

The tiara in itself managed to be bright and dull at the same time, a combination that made it look luminous, and as Leticia drew even closer to the mirror she could see tiny flecks of red, possibly rubies, encrusted all over it. A small part of her mind wondered silently to itself why anything about her appearance, or the appearance of this room should be of any importance to her; these details still didn't answer her questions.

"But...they are important," Leticia argued to her logical self. "I do not know how, but they are important to me."

She continued to stare at the tiara as if mesmerized.

Every contour, every plane of metal in the piece was somehow contorted, as though whoever fashioned the crown itself decided to neither etch specific detail into it or polish it. Leticia was reminded of old knarled tree branches, only this time they were glittering and willed into the shape of a standard royal headpiece.

Without warning, the room, as well as what seemed to be the air itself, changed around her. Leticia whipped her head around to see if she could catch the setting in mid-transformation, but found that her head, along with the rest of her body, felt heavier. She quickly sought out the mirror once more and saw that now a veil of a somewhat transparent, black fabric had been pinned to all the available patches of hair that were not touched by the metal of the tiara. The veil, along with the gleam of the headpiece, made for a very dramatic reflection.

It cascaded along her back, so long was it that Leticia had to shift her position on the bed so that she would prevent herself from sitting on it. Littered all about the veil were tiny orbs of metal, seemingly the same kind as what was used to make her crown.

The rest of her was no longer draped in her flowing nightgown, but dressed into a stiff, high-collared black dress, her waist imprisoned by what felt like a corset, her legs completely covered and entangled within silk skirts. She looked like some dark princess from a dark fairytale, a sinister queen ready to make her debut to loyal subjects.

Leticia placed a hand to her crown and felt how cool it was beneath her fingertips; she noted that now even her hair had returned to its former glossy, ink-like black, not a white or grey strand in sight. Everything from her attire to the room itself seemed so familiar and yet so foreign.

She heard her own words echoing in her mind softly, as though her voice were coming from some place far away.

"I do not know how, but they are important to me."

All in one moment a barrage of images consumed her attention, all playing before her mind's eye like a silent film. She saw the sinister tiara once again, but this time it was held by a pair of rough hands littered lightly with freckles, the fingers long and slender. She tried to reach out and touch the figure holding the malformed thing, but found that she was both unable to move and speak.

Whoever it was they were coming toward her, but Leticia still could not make her head tilt up to reveal their identity. She then heard her own voice again speak, but still in that hushed, far away tone: "You know who it is."

The figure was now in front of her, and the moment she saw those hands up close she knew who it was. They were the same hands that had touched her, that had caressed her skin and hair for a little over four decades now. She felt the weight of his presence all around her, the heady feeling of his passion, power, and menace that accompanied him always and that intensified whenever they were together. Her willowy ghost voice spoke once more, but only in a whisper: "Erik."

The grip his hands had on the tiara tensed slightly, and it was then she knew he had heard her utter his name. Leticia felt a bit smug in regards to Erik and the new found tension flowing between them now in this dream-like world. "All these years and I can still arouse him just by handling his name intimately," she thought as he drew closer.

He was now directly in front of her and made to coronate her with what she realized was something he himself had made for her to wear. Leticia began to see more images, this time of those hands folding and arching around a mass of floating liquid metal. Slowly but surely the crown she had seen emerged from his desire to form it; these images of the headpiece's creation came to an abrupt stop however, and now it was just her back to being motionless and speechless whilst it was being set atop her head.

Not even a split second that the crown was on Leticia that she felt her body exhale with a breath she didn't even know she was holding. She stretched her fingers out in delight that she could move again and looked up to see if the person in front of her was truly indeed Erik.

To her absolute horror it was not truly indeed Erik.

It was Shaw.

Her heart turned to lead and dropped into her stomach; her mouth fell open in a moment of pure, unadulterated terror. The helmet...it was too dark to be silver, but too light to be steel. Just like her crown.

Just like her...all thoughts died away as she looked into those knowing, laughing, cruel eyes, eyes that told her he knew secrets that would make the most strong-willed of men shrink back. That he reveled in those secrets. Those eyes were like jagged pieces of glass as they gazed down on her, shining with excitement.

Excitement for _what_?

At first he only stood there ramrod straight, all flashing orbs and condescending smile, and then the smile grew wider.

And wider.

And wider.

Wider still.

Until his lips literally stretched from ear to ear, his mouth filled with teeth that belonged to an angler fish. Leticia couldn't even blink, the entire measure of her being filled with an overwhelming sense of dread and disgust.

What disturbed her more than anything else though were the corners of Shaw's mouth when he gave her his monstrous grin. The flesh there was ripped, as though his face just wasn't big enough anymore for his new jaws. As he widened his smile, the corners of that gory mouth were then hidden within the confines of the helmet, and blood began to drip down onto his shoulders.

He lunged for her.

In her desperate attempt to get away she turned, but as though she had just run off the edge of a cliff she now felt herself falling. Everything around Leticia was black, black like a bottomless pit that ended only when it reached the core of the Earth. She felt her mouth fall open into a silent scream, her veil and long skirts billowing all around her.

Before she knew what was happening, a sudden burst of light blinded her momentarily, then...she felt silk beneath her grasping palms.

She was no longer falling but...she tore the veil from her eyes and saw that she was back in the red and gold room, beneath being the silk clad bed. Before she had the chance to roll off and search desperately for an exit from this nightmare, there was an explosion of noise that caused her to freeze in fear. It sounded like a car crash, metal grinding against metal. And then all was silent.

"God, just wake up already," she told herself in a hushed tone, as if she were afraid someone might hear her. Just as she started a slow crawl towards the edge of the bed she heard another sound that arrested her attention. She stilled all movements just to make sure it wasn't the rustle of her own skirts that she was hearing.

The sound was soft, but she could tell it was beginning to pick up volume. It was the sound of...gears. Gears turning and screeching over each other, as one might hear in a factory of some sort. Leticia prayed that the sound wouldn't get any louder, but found her prayers unanswered as the slow, maddening grinding was starting to reach a repetitive boom in her ears. The room itself began to tremble from the noise, and the only thing that could make this worse in Leticia's opinion were to be if she looked up and saw Shaw with his glass eyes and demon mouth again.

The damned sound was now so loud that she clasped her hands over her ears in a feeble attempt to stop her ear drums from exploding. "Stop, stop, please stop," she whimpered to herself. The moment she stopped pleading the noise was muffled dramatically. She looked up to see if there was anything different about the room this time since last in it.

As far as she could tell nothing had changed; even the trembling of the room and its furniture.

"The noise hasn't lowered at all," she thought, "my hearing must have been affected then." She could still feel the pulse of the grinding gears reverberate through her chest, which confirmed her guess that it was she that was altered and not the noise itself. Along with the muffled gears another sound had started much to Leticia's dismay. It was a low buzz, and though it wasn't loud in the least it drowned out the rest of the gears' constant screeching. The buzz seemed to have an echo attached to it, one that sent a shudder through her body, as though it were a warning of some sort.

Trying her best to ignore the buzzing and focus on getting out of this prison, Leticia was nearly off the bed when a sharp pain hit her square in the chest.

More pain came when she felt herself fall back on the mattress, the crown now digging into her skull when her head collided with the firm surface. "It's like someone's punched a corkscrew through my chest plate," she thought hazily. The invisible corkscrew twisted, and Leticia writhed on the luxurious sheets, a cry of pain issuing from her that she could not hear.

Just the pain and that damn buzzing.

She could feel herself pull her body into a tight ball, swaying gently as though that would rid her of her current torment.

A sob was beginning to force its way up her throat. "When will this end, when will this end?" Through the noise and the pain Leticia peeked through her transparent veil that was currently thrown over her eyes to check if she was completely alone.

The last thing she needed was to be vulnerable, as well as unable to move, and find Shaw above her where she lay ready to butcher her. To her relief, though it was short-lived as a small flare of pain shot through her once more, she was alone but found the room changed yet again. She immediately shut her eyes, refusing to be drawn in by all these bizarre changes in this stupid place that lead her to dark abysses where evil men lurked.

To her intense frustration, Leticia found that she had lost control _again_ of all her motor skills, and felt an unseen force behind her eyelids that tried to force them open. She practically pleaded with her hands to rise up and cover her eyes but it was all useless.

She couldn't even scream in anger when her eyes completely opened, and now was forced to witness what else this evil room had in store for her.

Right in front of her were three items that she instantly recognized. The most noticeable was the scarlet dress that she was sewing before everything went to hell on roller-skates. To Leticia's surprise it was now finished, but no longer a dress made for a little girl.

The dress was cut for a woman about her size, only the color of it remained unchanged. "Wanda," she thought. On the dress lay the other two items, both gleaming in the lamplight, their silver coloration sticking out amongst all the scarlet. To the right lay a pair of rings, one a thick silver band, the other delicate and engraved with flowers. "Pietro and Crystal's wedding bands." The item to the left was a comb made to be a decorative hairpiece rather than for grooming, the top of it engraved with flowers just as Crystal's wedding ring was. "Lorna." The comb used to be her own, made and given to her by Erik, his very first gift to her. She gave it to Lorna on her eighteenth birthday, and was told that one day she too could pass it on to any daughters she may have.

Each of the items sprawled before her represented her family. She scanned over them again, and wondered why nothing of Erik's was there.

The moment her husband crossed her mind, she heard a voice, one much like her phantom lilts when she was in the dark with Shaw, but surprisingly it was not her own.

"Never again."

The message was so brief, the tone so soft that she couldn't decipher who it was that had spoken. Not long after the ominous message was delivered, and despite her current paralysis, Leticia felt the air in the room shift once again. "No, no, NO, not again," was her mental plea as the setting was either changed or added to. The pain was still nestled within her chest, but it seemed to be fading. "At least I can have a reprieve from this ripping, knawing..." without warning a tidal wave of pain slammed into her chest, rippling out to her unmoving limbs.

Her agonized scream was caught in her throught.

She was in so much pain this time that her eyes began to fill with tears. "Wake up Leticia, wake up," her internal dialogue moaned pitifully as the wetness poured out.

As the pain slowly subsided she was able to focus a bit better, and suddenly realized that the big red spot in her line of sight wasn't there before. The pain she had experienced was so great that she suspected that whatever was there now had been before her for some time and she hadn't noticed its appearance. The water in her eyes made it difficult to see what it was; she attempted to blink the remaining tears away but she couldn't even do that. "Who is controlling me? _What _is controlling me?"

She pictured herself laying on this too red bed with strings coming out of various points of her body, a puppeteer peering over the edge controlling her and the objects of this room. She wondered if the puppeteer was the demon Shaw that she had encountered.

"Move, move, come on goddamnit move..." the blast of pain that came this time was so tremendous that all Leticia could see for a minute was a searing, white light. Molten lava coursed through every vein, needles punctured skin; she felt as though she were being roasted and skewered alive. And just like that the pain vanished and Leticia blinked.

She felt perfectly fine, as though the pain had never been there, as though she hadn't been slowly going insane from not being able to even twitch a finger. Now she was more than twitching, the feel of her muscles relaxing as she cautiously lifted herself off her stomach. She rolled her wrists and cracked her knuckles. "Hm, no aches, no trembling, it was as though it had never happened." Hearing her own voice made her feel giddy as it came out smoothly, no traces of exhaustion framing her words.

Looking around the room, as she had done when she first landed here, Leticia noticed, the dread building back in her stomach like bile, that the room was still shaking. She felt herself cower slightly, anticipation building that at any moment the horrible grinding sound would roar back to life in her ears.

With the tilt of her head she braved another look at the massive mirror that hung over the dresser, ready to see if anything else about her had changed. Her focus was ripped away from her reflection however as she saw what must have been the great red spot earlier. Dead center of the dresser there sat Shaw's helmet. Despite the fear that was nearly driving her into panic at the thought of Shaw being in the room with her, Leticia couldn't help but think: "I don't remember it ever being red."

Right at that moment, whatever spell had been placed on the room to have it remain deathly silent was broken. The grinding was now louder than before, a sonic boom smashing out all other noise as well as Leticia's sanity. She felt her power surge through her, the electricity in the air beginning to crackle dangerously.

"I have to get out, I HAVE TO GET OUT!" And with that she stirred the air around her till lashing tendrils of wind formed into a cyclone that proceeded to tear the room apart. Every object was mercilessly crushed by the howling tempest, including the dreaded red helmet. The ceiling had no choice but to give to Leticia's force, and as she rose up and flew out she laughed with triumph and joy.

As she soared upward her vision grew bleary, but not with tears like before: with exhaustion. Her survival instincts railed at her for this. She could practically hear a little voice screaming "No! You can't fall asleep in mid-flight! You'll fall to you're death you idiot!" Leticia, giving in to the inviting lull of slumber, lightly brushed that voice aside and replied: "Don't worry, the wind will carry me." And with that she slipped into warm darkness, sounds coming from far away, echoes of buzzing, grinding, screaming, and curiously, the sound of a woman softly sobbing.

"Don't cry," she thought gently, "don't cry."

* * *

><p>Leticia Lensherr had grown quite accustomed to nightmares in the course of her lifetime. First she dreamt of the camps, then she dreamt of the Cuban beach disaster, then of losing Erik, then of dying, and then finally she dreamt of losing her family.<p>

Day after day the news was littered with stories of mutant versus human conflict. Families afraid for their lives because a child of theirs was 'different', parents blaming these children, children blaming their parents, it was a societal disaster. Politics went through the ringer as well, senators arguing amongst each other about what to do in regards to the 'mutant problem'. The X-men had a lot on their plates right now, especially Leticia, Erik, and perhaps more so than anybody, Charles.

They were teachers and leaders to the younger mutants attending the institute, and so they had to be strong in the face of every stressful situation that threatened their way of life. The problem was that these stressful situations were coming in an unending, unrelenting succession.

To make matters worse, only a week ago the manor received a frantic phone call from Pietro that Wanda had begun to lose control over her powers yet again, and that she refused to get out of bed some days unless he forced her to get up and eat something. Leticia and Erik immediately set out to see if they could ease the strain on their daughter, and luckily were able to sooth her without Charles backing them up. This time at least. And so, with the government practically frothing at the mouth to grab at any reason they could to storm Westchester and confiscate everything and everybody, along with the public ready to march against them with torches and pitchforks, as well as her youngest child being slowly eaten alive by her own mutation, yes, life for the Lady of Westchester was stressful.

Most nights Leticia and Erik would fall into bed and into an exhausted, dreamless sleep, but now the nightmares had set in again. All of them were dreams of chaos, pain, and the endless worry she bore for her three children of which now she could no longer keep a watchful eye over as they lived separate lives away from the mansion. But the dream she had tonight was different.

Not once had Leticia dreamt of her younger self, nor had she dreamt of anything so vivid and terrifying. Not since she was a teenager anyway.

In her dreams she usually saw the inhabitants of the mansion doing or saying unintelligible, nonsensical things, but tonight she could have sworn her nightmare had been real. She could still feel silk between her fingers, an ache in her chest, the crown upon her head, and the wind against her face.

Although she was awake, Leticia kept her eyes firmly shut.

All her life she had been fortunate enough to sleep like the dead. Even when coming out of the deepest and darkest of nightmares her body would remain eerily still, unlike Erik who would thrash and cry out in the past. Truth be told, she was still afraid. She didn't want to open her eyes and find herself trapped in that gold-red room again, Sebastian Shaw slithering about in the dark corners.

To her annoyance however, she had to open her eyes. She could feel her face firmly smashed into something soft, and surprisingly, flesh-like. Next thing she knew her vision was filled with white cotton and the rise and fall of a chest. Erik's chest. Or at least she hoped it was Erik.

Gently, she pushed her face away from Erik's side and cautiously peeped up to inspect his face. To her relief she was greeted with the sight of his beloved features and not the demon Shaw. She took a moment to admire him as she settled her chin on his chest. His wide nose. His grim mouth. His sharp cheekbones. His wavy hair. Leticia wanted to kiss each of them.

She felt a giggle build up in her chest as she caught herself thinking like a swooning idiot of a school girl about Erik's profile. "It's not like I can control myself," she defended against her no nonsense, logical self, "this is Erik I'm swooning about after all." The giggle that started in her chest rushed to the tip of her tongue, but she swallowed back her silliness as it would wake the man beside her.

Leticia groaned when her eyes read the time on the clock beside their bed.

1: 50 A.M. it blared.

She let out a frustrated breath. Along with each of her nightmares this week she would wake directly afterward and not be able to go back to sleep. If this pattern continued at the rate it was she'd be a tyrant by the weekend, the new additions of the school frightened by the sleepless, grumpy, old hag. Speaking of old...Leticia peered back down at her hands.

Relief spread through her at the sight of her weathered, leather-like appendages. They were back to being the hands of an old woman, experienced, worn hands.

Most nights when she had nightmares she was content to burrow into Erik's side and doze until it was time to get up. But not this night; she felt restless.

Slowly as well as carefully Leticia attempted to disengage herself from Erik's side, but found it difficult. Her husband had kept the habit of drawing her close to him as they slept ever sense they had first fell in love. She knew it was because he would not feel content until she was safe and secure in his arms, and so he began to practically cage her to his side at nights. Instead of finding it stifling, Leticia would eagerly burrow herself into his chest, loving the feel and smell of his skin. But as much as Erik being near was a relief, she now needed to have at least a few moments alone.

Thankfully her figure was still slender, and so she finally managed to slip from Erik's grasp without jostling him awake. She knew though that she would have only a limited amount of time to think however. It would only take Erik a mere matter of minutes before he would wake and find her gone. Then he would come looking for her and ask if she was alright.

During the course of the last two weeks he had made it his business that his wife was as comfortable as possible, always holding her and whispering soothingly, never missing a chance to steal a few moments from their busy schedule and tell her he loved her and that she was beautiful; sadly though they still hadn't even had the time to have a full conversation with one another. Leticia knew that he was eager to talk, especially after he noticed her growing more and more weary each day.

She noticed that the moon was a full one tonight, and so decided that the gardens would be an agreeable place to think in until Erik showed up, to which she was sure he would. "But until then I suppose I shall drown myself with worry," she thought wryly, hoping that Charles wasn't awake to hear her. All she needed was the both of them being mother hens about her distress at two in the morning.

Before heading out from their room Leticia took a long look at her reflection in the mirror over her dresser. "Never would I have thought that I would feel such relief at seeing you, you weathered thing," she thought at the image before her. Her hair was its usual grey, silver, black color, her face lined at the forehead and mouth corners, her eyes no longer as bright as they once were. She tapped the dresser lightly with her fingers, as if she wanted to create a small sensation of feeling to ground herself to reality, and then gently headed out the door, opening it slowly so as to ease that dreadful sqeaking that would wake not just Erik but the dead as well.

After closing the door just as slowly, Leticia made her trek down to the gardens, taking the less traversed routes about the great house so as to avoid the night owls. "Or any little ones that should be in bed," she thought as she found two children at the foot of a stairwell whispering excitedly to one another. The moment they looked up and saw her descending from the steps they scampered off quickly, hoping that Miss Letty wouldn't tell the Professor about their nighttime adventure. Or worse. Tell Mr. Erik.

As she hadn't recognized who the two little culprits were she let them go without a hassle. "I'll just look for the two munchkins who can't keep themselves from nodding off at breakfast," she laughed lowly. Not that she'd be any better than they come the sunrise.

The moon was still out however, as she found it none too difficult to navigate her way to the kitchen by its light. Strangely, Logan wasn't there; he traveled the mansion's more obscure routes more than she, although this was her home. Leticia hoped he was able to actually sleep for once instead of prowling about restless like she was doing. She silently found herself envying his healing abilities as they kept him alert and ready for the pressures of the day despite living a nearly sleepless existence.

Leticia finally reached the sanctum of the garden, relishing the light breeze that blew in as she pushed open the kitchen's back door. She let the wind weave itself through her loose silver locks, enjoying the feeling of it entering the limp crevices of her white nightgown. The tiredness that sluggishly swam through her blood settled deep within her bones.

It was moments like these that Leticia truly did feel old. A good portion of the time she felt like she had always felt ever since accepting this place as home: a strong, energetic woman and X-man. It was in this very garden where she first took the smallest of Xavier's students, when the institute was finally established, and led them in playing games and eating popsicles on hot summer days. Where she watched them befriend each other, and learn that they no longer needed to be afraid.

Leticia finally reached the fountain before she crossed her arms and came to a halt. She allowed her eyes to slide shut so that she could allow her many memories to wash over her. The trickle of the fountain's water brought her back to when Pietro didn't even reach her hip height wise, and he played tag around it with the others his age at the time, all groaning with frustration because they couldn't catch him. The wind that gently flowed around her made her think of Lorna in her teenage years, and how when the wind would whip her beautiful green hair about, Erik would come and hold her and run his fingers through her mane. The early morning darkness she knew was still there behind her eyelids made her think of Wanda, and of how she would sneak out to this very garden, thinking that no one would _ever_ suspect, and practice controlling her magic-like mutation, a glow of scarlet dimly lighting the grounds before the house.

Wanda. Her youngest. Her baby. Who was now dealing with another bout of physical, mental, and emotional stress. Of whom she could do almost next to nothing for except make endless inquiries about her health to her son. Pietro did his utmost to assure his mother that her efforts to help were not in vain, and that Wanda truly benefitted from seeing her and Erik, and that she would be calm in no time. She wished with all her heart that she could believe him.

Leticia squeezed her eyelids even firmer together, desperately trying to beat down her frustration and sorrow over her inability to chase away her daughter's pain when she heard the kitchen door she had come out of minutes earlier squeak open. A slight sigh puffed out of her.

"Took him all of five minutes to wake and find me," thought Leticia with a twinge of irritation. Privacy was a rare thing at the institute, especially if you were an instructor such as herself, everyone coming at you left and right with issues that needed resolving, tears that needed to be tenderly wiped away, fires that needed to be put out after fights between students, walls that needed to be patched up after said fires, etcetera, etcetera.

His soft footsteps were drawing closer, but still she did not open her eyes, nor move from her hunched over position. She could have sworn she heard him give a soft chuckle of amusement at her attempt to stay unnaturally still and blend in with the flora and fauna all around her. A small, reasonable voice rose up within her and said "He's not here to dump his problems on you; he's here to hold you and kiss yours away."

Sure enough not a moment later Leticia felt two strong arms wrap firmly, yet tenderly, around her waist, her small body being drawn backwards towards the broad chest. She let him move her, yet still didn't bother to open her eyes or loosen her arms from their rigid position.

This time she knew he was chuckling, as though to say "Ah. A challenge I see." Leticia held in the rude snort she was about to make. "Just a few moments alone is all I ask, but I can't even..." and _oh dear_, then came the kissing. The first was to the back of her head, a long, deep kiss that told her he wasn't going to leave her alone to stew in her self-deprecating thoughts, letting her know he was there to take care of her. The second went to the side of her head, an assurance that just a few more kisses would have her melting into his caresses. The third was placed on the shell of her left ear, the smallest of nips placed at the end to add a bit of spice to it.

Stubbornly, yet not without much internal struggling, Leticia remained motionless, willing herself to be impassive to Erik's teasing, annoying, wonderful, bloody amazing, God-I-love-this-man kisses. She could feel a grin tug at the corners of her mouth as she playfully resisted his passionate advances. She knew, _she just knew_, that one of his brows were arching up, framing that "oh so that's how you want to play it, no matter, you won't be able to resist me much longer" expression.

And with that came the fourth kiss on her cheek, not a chaste one that family or friends used as a greeting, but a powerful, searing one. Along with the kiss he roughly nuzzled her temple with his forehead, willing her to give into his affection and give him her attention. "Gah! You win this round Erik!," she thought exasperated, though not without hints of glee at what was to come next.

Leticia turned in his arms and placed her own around his shoulders, burying her face into his chest. His hold on her constricted so that now they were practically fusing together, they were so close. She could feel the rumble of triumph within him, the sound reverberating downward from his throat, but she could tell the atmosphere had lost its light-hearted, teasing quality, and he would no doubt start to ask her what was wrong and why she had been hiding away her doubts and fears from him.

It touched her deeply how Erik loved them just as much as her more positive qualities, the look in his eyes completely serious when he would profess that he would do anything for her. She sighed as she felt Erik take hold of her arms and begin to move her slightly away, effectively interrupting her cuddling. Before he could stop her she snapped out of his hold on her shoulders and went back to nuzzling the spot on his chest that she had been at previously.

It was his turn to heave a sigh, but the sound of it wasn't heavy with disapproval, and so they both gave into the cuddling of which soon became kissing. "I'll never get tired of this," Leticia vowed, a vow she had felt take hold of her heart ages ago.

"What am I to do with you?" his grave, yet smooth voice questioned. She could feel the giggling from earlier creep up from her stomach.

"Why...whatever you like my dear," she said while dissolving into suppressed laughter at her poor attempt at sounding seductive. Erik pulled her away from his chest again, his grip on her a tad tighter so that she couldn't escape and continue convincing him with her kisses that they didn't need to talk right just then. "Now," he started while she peeped up at him cautiously, "what is it exactly that my wife is doing out here alone at two in the morning?"

His brow quirked up again at his own inquiry, his expression the very picture of "you're in big trouble young lady."

Leticia merely smiled up at him sweetly and replied, "Oh nothing. Just waiting for my handsome, young lover to come and meet me."

The brow arched up higher.

"Is that so? LeBeau* left yesterday, so it couldn't be him."

"It's no one _you_ know."

"Not yet," Erik quipped with a feral grin. Leticia remembered she had joked like this with him once before they were married. His handsome face had pulled down into the most horrified grimace, his eyes blazing over Xavier's grounds, ready to commit unspeakable violence to said 'lover' once he was spotted. Leticia still grins at the memory to this day, but this was nothing compared to the explosion of laughter that ensued when her younger self saw Erik's horrified, jealous, over-protective visage burn over the pastures of green grass.

"Is it Wanda?"

His voice was barely above a whisper, but her head snapped up to meet his gaze as though he had shouted. By the way he witnessed her face harden slightly with the sorrow she tried desperately to smother, he knew he had struck at the heart of the matter. Not that he wasn't aware of it before, but life had been so hectic this last week and a half that focusing on anything but the affairs of the school and their students was just not an option. Leticia placed her hands on her hips and looked into her husband's face.

"Do you remember Pietro and Wanda's eighth birthday, and how I sewed that little scarlet dress for her?" Erik nodded. His daughter couldn't get enough of strutting around in that dress at the time, preening about the mansion like the princess she was. "Like the princess she is," Erik corrected with pride and love. He waited for his wife to continue.

"I dreamt...I dreamt that I was as I had been then, intent on sewing that dress, worrying about their birthday party." Erik knew that there had to be more than what she had told him, as he assumed most likely that she had taken to a new set of nightmares ever since they sought their daughter out to comfort her.

He wanted to rid his wife of that hard look in her eyes, the look that acted as a hardened shell that held the sap of despair and disappointment beneath it. He took her in his arms gently and kissed her forehead; Leticia knew it was his way of saying she didn't have to say anything more about this night's nightmare.

For about a tenth of a second she could have sworn the terrifying aura of Shaw's presence had drawn near, and she shuddered involuntarily into Erik.

"Wanda is strong my dear. She gets it from her mother." Leticia gave a tiny smile at that.

She could feel him begin down the path that would lead them back into the mansion. Moving with him, they both headed back to their room to catch a few more hours of much needed rest. The days coming ahead were going to be long ones.

* * *

><p>Leticia, whilst on the cusp of falling back into the lull of sleep, found herself wanting to clutch Erik and declare that something terrible was coming, that her nightmare wasn't just about Wanda, but of all of them, of how they would all somehow be snatched away from her.<p>

As she felt herself sink further down into the murky depths of her subconscious, Leticia saw flashes of sharp, gleaming teeth, felt the winds that carried her out of that prison she had dreamt of blow and slap the planes of her face, heard the distant, muffled cry of a woman mourning.

All these sensations eventually faded into blackness, but not before she heard, with the perfect clarity of which she heard it on that fateful day, a strong, accented voice declare "Never again."

* * *

><p>*Remy LeBeauGambit


	2. Chapter 2

****Finally! Chapter 2 has arrived! Just two points: (1) Yes, Leticia's brother and sister are named Pietro and Wanda. Since she's the mother of the twins by the same names in this fic, well, how do you think she got the idea to name them those names? Yep and (2) Leticia is in no way related to real life German, erotic photographer Ella von Unwerth. They just share a last name. :)

-Padua Burke

Disclaimer: I own nothing from X-men: First Class.

Happy reading.

* * *

><p><strong>The Lonely Little Dressmaker <strong>

_1962, Oxford, England_

Leticia von Unwerth had grown quite accustomed to nightmares in the course of her lifetime.

As a child she had dreamt of the imaginary monsters that took refuge within her closet, or beneath her bed, whimpering in her sleep until her older sister, Wanda, smoothed the hair from her pale little face and hummed a soothing lullaby. The monsters never stood a chance against her beautiful sister.

Then again, those monsters were never real.

The dreams of trolls and goblins were soon replaced with that of men bearing swastikas, the Star of David being sewn to cloth, the numbers on her forearm etched in as a reminder that her fate would be swallowed by an unforgiving furnace. The flames never received her, but the dull agony of loss had, and now whenever she caught a glimpse of her mark it would slowly rot away her feeble attempts at enjoying anything.

She could swear on the souls of her dead family some nights that after a rather grueling tussle with her ruined dreamscape that the numbers would burn, as though someone had stabbed her in that exact spot and the pain proceeded to boil in place.

But as of this moment, boiling blood was the least of her problems. It didn't matter how many times she had had this nightmare, or would have this nightmare, it still would bring wave after wave of lung-squeezing, mind-crushing, heart-stopping terror.

And those were its positive points.

* * *

><p>The collection of noise that punctured the cold, sharp air dulled dramatically as Pietro began to cry.<p>

The men in uniform were telling the men and women to separate. Wanda took one last frantic look around them to see if their parents were among the group that was put in the train with them. Leticia was too afraid to look around, frozen to the spot by the wild fear in her sister's liquid-black eyes, her ears filled with her brother's shuddering sobs. Wanda began to move to where the other women were, pulling Pietro along with her, Leticia clamping down on the crying boy's hand so that she could be pulled along with him. He yelped through his tears at his sister's vice-like grip, and began to cry louder at the discomfort of being yanked forward by one sister and dragged down by the other. Wanda's determined step never failed; it was as though she couldn't hear him.

"_She's marching off to her death."_

Leticia's claw-like hand constricted tighter around Pietro's. Her eyes were still focused solely on Wanda, the wailing of the youngest von Unwerth muffled by the little girl's instinctual fear of separation. Of death. Of the plumes of smoke. Of the roaring fires. She caught sight of the numbers on her forearm. She absently thought of herds of branded cattle.

"Stop crying Pietro. Please stop. I don't want this moment to be our last", she thought. The murmuring of the crowd blended together, creating a sort of low buzz; she could swear there was an echo to that noise. It felt like a warning.

_"No one chooses their last moments. You take what you are given."_

And that's when she felt it.

"No, no, please not now. Give me more time with them." She's only a little girl in this dream, but her voice is that of herself in the present. Leticia hates how pathetic it sounds.

The crowd of people seem to converge on them all in one moment, a mutilated mouth hungrily taking them in. She knows what's going to happen next; she doesn't know why she still fights this.

Hands leap up from every direction, steely fingers intending to grip Leticia's little body and drag her away from her family. Her hand nearly crushes Pietro's in a vain attempt to hold on. His cry of pain sounds off louder than the low hum of the collective hive all around her, accompanied by a rather sickening crunch as Leticia continued to squeeze her brother's already battered appendage.

_"How many times do you need to see this in order for you to realize that no matter how hard you try, you can never keep them here?"_

Leticia holds on for dear life. She yells for Wanda to stop her determined stride, but all is useless. She braces herself for the grand finale.

_"Their time is up."_

She feels herself being shoved backwards, the mass of limbs ebbing up her form as though to swallow her, and just like that it's done. Pietro's hand is free. It's all over.

Leticia von Unwerth is a sinking ship amongst a sea of flesh. She sees legs, arms, hands, feet, torsos, and yet, oddly, does not see hair, eyes, mouths, noses, or necks. She is too small, and there are too many bodies.

The buzz is now louder, but what does that matter? Nothing really. Now that her sister and brother were gone. Only a single pair of hands sprung forward this time in what looked like an attempt to cover her eyes, but they merely clamped down on the whole of her face, the fingers splayed just enough so that she could see Pietro and Wanda drift farther away.

_"You can't go with them."_ Leticia could swear there was soft laughter at the end of that statement from the voice from nowhere. The pair of hands on her face began to dig and wiggle their jagged nails into her skin.

"First they take my family, and now they wish to take my face?" thought Leticia almost petulantly. Her voice was still from her adult self, and not her child one.

It still sounded pathetic.

She knew the nightmare had nearly reached its end; she could now only wait and see which version this one would be. _"The most dreaded version, of course."_ Leticia braced herself for the moment she knew both her siblings would turn around. They turned to face their sister, in doing so their bodies jerking and twisting in the most unnatural ways. She could see Pietro pull his broken, pulpy hand to his chest, eyes accusing and hard all until they began to roll into the back of his head.

Wanda's ink-toned orbs did the same, but now the both of them had their eyes literally sinking back into the sockets of their skulls. _"First the eyes."_ Their chapped lips thinned until they were sucked within their gaping mouths. _"Then the lips." _The hue of their moon-pale skin was now an ashen-grey, splotches of boiling blood bloomed everywhere like flowers in the spring.

Leticia cursed the all-knowing voice that had spoken moments earlier; it was right about the nightmare being in its most dreaded form. She knew every inch of this dream; she knew the exact moment when Pietro's hand would be snapped, when the writhing arms would rise up and take hold of her, she's seen this thousands of times. She thought that she'd be used to it by now. That the constant exposure to this concoction of memories and monsters would somehow become less frightening. But every single time is like the first, and the terror makes the breath in her throat freeze like a startled deer.

"_Brace yourself."_ The soft laughter was back in the all-knowing voice. Everything happened in one explosive moment.

The creatures before Leticia that once used to be her brother and sister opened their mouths impossibly wide, their jaws stretching down nearly to their chests, and let out the most gruesome, terrifying wail that one could ever hear in both the dreaming and waking world. A symphony of high-pitched screams, dull, scraping roars, and low-humming moans filled the air; Leticia felt herself swallow the whimper of fear that demanded it be released.

She knew things would only get worse; that the noise issuing from the hollowed out corpses of Pietro and Wanda would only get louder. That the writhing of the bodies that seemed to create a fleshy dome around her nightmare family would twist and turn more swiftly and yet every movement would jerk and tear as the movements of her siblings had previously done.

The hands on her face scratched along the planes of her small, withered cheeks, and the scent of blood wafted into the already stale air. Leticia didn't care, so long as she could have a moment's distraction from the unending wail that belted out of her not-brother and not-sister. The dome of flesh was closing in on them, and yet this did nothing to muffle the demon howls; if anything, they seemed to get louder.

"Just a little bit longer, and this will be over," Leticia thought with an eerie patience. The arms encasing her and her family were beginning to constrict tighter and tighter around her frail body, reminiscent of the way a python wraps its cords of muscle around prey. The volume of the shrieking went up a notch.

No, make that two notches.

Pietro and Wanda were now blocked from sight by the coiling body parts, but before Leticia could feel grateful, an arm that lay over her chest began to press downwards with alarming pressure, cutting off the air from entering her lungs. "Don't panic," she warned herself, but even in sleep her body seemed to register that her breathing was hitching, although there was nothing in reality to prevent it. Her vision began to grow hazy as her eyes watered. "Good...good. It's almost time to wake up." And then, strangely enough, the gripping nightmare melted away like clouds in the wake of sunshine.

Leticia was thrown into a fog of confusion. She could faintly hear the sound of the all-knowing voice speaking rapidly, but hadn't a clue as to what it was saying now. "...The Nightmare has never done this before," she thought with wonder. Her breathing returned to normal as she realized that the voice she had heard whilst thinking was from her child self, and not her adult one. It sounded strong and sure despite it being as soft as the sound of wind chimes. Leticia loved that.

* * *

><p>Leticia slept on, but she could tell that at any time she could wake.<p>

Her dreaming now lacked in vivid imagery, but none the less she felt a sluggish pang of surprise that she continued to dream at all. The fog of confusion earlier saw fit to become an image of actual fog, and she felt her body tense. "I usually wake up after that fleshy cage tries to crush me, but now..." Leticia wasn't sure what was happening. The Nightmare would always end abruptly, and everything after would just fade into a black abyss. She feared that the dream she was having now would just be another tortuous extension of her terror-addled mind.

But strangely enough, Leticia felt a soothing confidence seep into her chest that this wasn't her Nightmare. A hand went up to rub out the slight itch she felt in her right eye when she felt her breath catch in yet another moment of genuine surprise.

Her hand. It was tiny and bird-like, the bump of bone that protruded out of her wrist looking all the more noticeable as her arm had not one ounce of fat on it. They were the hands of a child. More specifically in her case, a starving child.

Leticia took a moment to look around her and see if there was anything or anyone that broke the creamy shielding of the fog. Seeing nothing from eye level, her dark orbs sought out whatever may be above her head.

What she saw made her pause yet again: what looked like the tip of a great tower peeked out from the whirling fog, and in her peripheral vision she saw barbed wire perched dangerously atop fences on either side of her. She hadn't realized she was slowly making her way forward until she stopped moving altogether.

The building tops overlooking the sitting clouds, the barbed fences... "I'm still in the camp." Leticia noticed her words came out in German rather than in English; she felt a strong sense of dread begin to replace the soothing confidence. And then, with a silent swoop of sorts, the fog that was before her parted, almost majestically so, to either side of her, like curtains being drawn back to let the sunshine in through windows.

The ground level clouds dissipated to reveal a pair of mangled, twisted gates at the end of her path.

Fear's clammy fingers seemed to stroke down Leticia's protruding spine. A part of her wanted nothing more than to find a way out of this horrid place; the other part, though it was small, wanted to go up to the gates.

Leticia could swear she could feel the low thrum of a strange energy embolden her to move forward. It wasn't a pleasant feeling, but one rather with a urgent drive, as though she just _had_ to investigate this out of place structure. Now almost being upon it she couldn't help but notice how the barbed wire crowning the piece was bent every which way, the front of the gate pushed gruesomely inward.

"Had someone tried to escape?" she thought with wonder. Surely an escape would not render the gates so wrecked! Perhaps more than one prisoner had tried to exit here, but still, one would have to _try_ beyond anything to manipulate the metal into this useless heap.

The closer Leticia drew, the more powerful the energy driving her onward would pulse, as though it had a life of its own and would like nothing more than to reach out and touch the damaged limbs of metal. Leticia slowly lifted a skeletal arm, her fingers stretching towards the fence in anticipation..._Don't do this. Don't do this,_ was the mantra at the forefront of her mind. This time she heard her own voice reply, still in German, but now that of a woman instead of a child: _I must_.

And so she touched it.

All in a single moment she experienced sights and sounds that were foreign to her, and yet somehow, someway, achingly familiar. She hears the shrieks of a woman in the air, her calls unintelligible. She hears the answering scream of a voice much younger.

_Mama...mama_...

Leticia cannot make out anymore than that, their voices thick with grating sobs. She hears anger being birthed in the cries of the younger voice, his sobs transforming themselves into vicious yells. She sees fingers outstretched and feels a desire that consumes the entirety of her being. The desire to break free of the hands she sees holding what looks like a boy back from the rest of the people being herded into Auschwitz.

The desire to return back to the side of the gaunt woman that was being forcibly dragged away.

She sees how the gates crunch inwards; hears the groan of metal wrapping around metal. Leticia's world suddenly goes black, and she can no longer see these visions of a life not her own, and yet still the grinding metal of those gates are heard loud and clear.

She finds the noise both terrifying and lovely.

* * *

><p>Leticia awoke in a state of peace and calm; a rare thing for her.<p>

After almost every nightmare she would wake to the sounds of thunder and lightning, or to the sight of the clouds bruised grey and black whilst churning angrily through her window. On the worst of mornings she would feel the cutting beams of electricity in her modest, little room, and would try with all her might to calm herself so she didn't accidently destroy anything or set something on fire.

But not on this morning: no, instead of the gloom looking in on her there was sunshine in its stead. The rays of light pouring in warmed her small living quarters, and so she took a moment to snuggle into her pillow and doze before getting ready for the day. She began to wonder about the dream she just had, but in an effort to stop any melancholy from choking the happiness out of a beautiful morning, she shoved those thoughts deep within herself, and instead lamented the fact that she probably wouldn't get the chance to be outside so much today.

Eyeing the clock on the wall before her bed she sighed in relief. It was early, but fortunately late enough that she would have missed breakfast with all the older ladies that lived on the second floor of Katherine's Dress Shop along with her. It wasn't that she disliked the group of dames that dwelled here, but they did have the tendency to gossip unkindly about the customers, some even casting their disapproving glances upon her.

Leticia was up and moving now in earnest; if she wanted anytime at all to have breakfast and perhaps read a little she would have to be ready soon, as the week was sure to be a busy one. The university nearby was having a function celebrating something she knew not what by Friday, and no doubt all the ladies in the area would be beginning their search for the perfect dress.

As Leticia tended to brushing her hair, she felt a bubble of pride swell within her chest. Many of the dresses on display were ones of her own making, and hopefully while she worked she would hear the sounds and words of the ladies' approval of them while they shopped. Leticia peered at herself in the mirror, and decided she didn't look as exhausted as she so often did; perhaps today would be as pleasant as the weather.

* * *

><p>She had tidied up all the shelves twice, rearranged some clothing on their racks, checked the cash register, swept the porch, and still no one had come in as of yet.<p>

Leticia sighed as she looked at the shop's grandfather clock that read a quarter till noon. Business would no doubt pick up as Friday drew closer, but today would probably be a slow one if no shoppers came in by lunch. The little dressmaker began to make her way upstairs, but then glided down quickly as she passed under the view of Mrs. Chadwick, whose disapproving glower served as an order for her to stay downstairs and watch for customers.

Not wishing to anger her employer, Leticia remained obediently on the first floor, and so occupied herself by searching for something else to tidy up. She spied a rack of gowns and set herself on the task of placing the most appealing of them to the front to be within eyesight when the little bell by the door chimed.

Leticia turned, ready to face the shopper and give her automatic greeting of 'welcome, how may I help you', when she was nearly ran over by what she assumed was an over-enthusiastic young lady, judging by the waves of blonde that zipped past her vision.

Regaining her balance, Leticia prepared yet again to greet the customer, but at that same moment the bell by the door chimed again. Thankfully the gentlemen that came in wasn't in an awful rush as the lady, but looked both winded and annoyed. "I beat you!" the woman cried cheerfully, but the young gentlemen looked anything but amused.

"Raven, the next time you wish to race _anyone_, let it not be in the street where you could potentially be run over!" he cried indignantly. "Oh come on Charles! The only reason it seemed dangerous to you was because you were moving slow enough that a runaway shopping cart could have ran you down!" she told him despite his concern.

Although this Charles still seemed piqued by his companion's recklessness, his boyish features couldn't help but bloom into a smile as she turned away from him and set about trying to find the article of clothing she desired as though it were a God-given mission. Leticia, although it was highly unprofessional of her, back peddled her small form into the numerous clothing racks so they would not see her there.

She had always hated going up to the customers and asking them if they needed assistance, most usually glancing at her like she was a winged insect threatening to fly into the space between their eyes. And frankly, she also disliked any shop's tendencies to send out their employees to greet them, and so resolved to leave the couple before her alone.

That didn't stop her from being curious however.

Another reason Leticia could scarcely imagine speaking to them on any terms was their attractiveness. Now that she had the chance to observe them while they were busy shopping, Leticia noticed that the woman, or 'Raven' as she was called, seemed more girlish than womanish, her clear blue eyes sparkling as she scanned each dress with care, no doubt imagining which ones would look best on her.

Leticia felt a twinge of excitement when the blonde swept her gaze over a gown that she herself had made, and nearly broke out into a grin as she saw her hurriedly seek out her size and drape it over her arm so that she could try it on once ready. With caution, Leticia shifted interest in observing her male companion, hoping he would not notice her watching them. The dressmaker nearly laughed at what she saw.

A look of deep disapproval was etched on his face, making him seem so much older than he was. "But what is he disapproving of?" thought Leticia curiously.

She followed his uneasy gaze to the now three gowns in the arms of the lovely girl now heading for the fitting room. Aha! Then he must be a friend of hers, or more likely so, her brother. All the gowns she had selected were beautiful, but it was evident she intended to show off on Friday as all three had rather daring necklines that would no doubt grab the attention of every man at the event.

If the man trailing behind her were an indulgent paramour, he would of course have no objections to his lover wearing gowns with plunging necklines, but as this Charles stomped off to wait on Raven, it was plainly evident he would be placing himself between every predator ready to pounce his sister on the night of the university's celebration.

Leticia chuckled lightly. Ah, the poor man.

Her musings were broken however, as a group of four girls that looked around the age of the one now in the fitting room bustled in, already fussing to each other about what colors looked best on them and who was taking them to the event. Leticia shook her head a bit at her silliness for observing two customers while hiding amongst the clothes, and so set to work on tending to the young ladies who came in. It seemed today would prove to be busy after all.

* * *

><p>Leticia was in the fitting room, setting aside all the gowns that had been tried on onto a separate rack from the rest, when she overheard, yet again, another verbal battle happen between the siblings that had come in an hour ago. "Charles, it's beautiful!" came the exasperated statement.<p>

"Its beauty would be greater still if there were more of it! We came here to get you a gown, not a shredded cocktail dress!" he hissed in reply. Leticia sighed in relief. The dress he was critiquing didn't sound like one of the many she had made. Raven was not defeated however. "You're not my mother you know! You don't get to tell me what I can and can't wear!"

"Raven," Charles started, long suffering coating each syllable, "please, I don't mean to lead you about like a child, but God forbid that dress gets caught on a door jam or is stepped on, it will fall right off with little resistance!"

"But..."

"Excuse me...is there anything that I can help the two of you with?" The pair of them turned suddenly to see who was addressing them. Their bickering had gone on without pause ever since they entered the fitting rooms, and so Leticia just had to see if she could quell their disagreement so that the other customers would not be annoyed by them while they tried things on.

Raven was on the verge of saying 'no thank you' when Charles intervened.

"Yes, please, if you will, convince my sister that this here dress is..." The moment he looked her in the eye his speech came to an abrupt halt.

Leticia cocked her head to the side for a moment, as if to question why he stopped, but soon grew uncomfortable under the man's gaze. Curiously, there was nothing inappropriate about his staring, his eyes never wandering over her body; so steadfast were they on her face that she wondered if there was anything on it.

He looked as though he was breaching the barrier that was her forehead and trying to read her thoughts.

And then, as though someone had flipped on a light switch, he came back from wherever it was he had been. "Yes, yes, if you please, try and convince my sister that the dress she has on now is certainly not the best a lady could sport on an evening out." He gave this request wearing the most charming smile a man had ever graced her with.

Leticia was sure she blushed brighter than a fire engine, and so scurried off to find another dress that would suit his sister so that she wouldn't make a fool of herself in front of a man who was that insufferably handsome, and more so, up close. Leticia hurried out of there so quickly that she never saw his eager, questioning gaze burn a hole into the back of her head.

* * *

><p>The day was absolutely glorious.<p>

The sun was shining, he was close to becoming a professor of all that he was passionate about, and he was happy to be taking Raven shopping in preparation for Oxford's charity event on Friday. Nothing could go wrong; except when your sister of whom you cherish and would do anything to keep safe, and would decidedly prefer for her to _not _get run-the-bloody-hell over, declares she must race you to the dress shop of her choosing, and so darts into traffic and nearly gives you a heart attack.

Charles could already feel the exhaustion set in with his efforts in keeping up with Raven's boundless energy, and it wasn't even noon yet.

"I beat you!" Raven crowed as he finally managed to wheeze his way into the shop. "Raven, the next time you wish to race _anyone_, let it not be in the street where you could potentially be run over!"

"Oh come on Charles! The only reason it seemed dangerous to you was because you were moving slow enough that a runaway shopping cart could have ran you down!" And with that she shifted her attention from her old fart of a brother to the brightly colored gowns that made her eyes shimmer with glee.

Charles sighed. Although he was still highly annoyed at her recklessness, he was happy to see her enjoying herself, and so was determined not to spoil their day with a fowl mood. That was the plan of course, until Raven began to pick out her top choices for Friday's evening apparel.

If you could call them that.

To his horror, and to every elder brother's horror, as his sister grew older her skirts would suspiciously grow shorter, the necklines on the blouses she wore disappearing to reveal _more_ of her. Charles had to restrain himself a time or two from throttling the hell out of all the men that would eye Raven and indulge in their explicit, disgusting thoughts of her; and yet she seemed to want this kind of attention for reasons Charles could not fathom.

He pondered all this grumpily whilst glaring heavily at the silk and cashmere pieces she had hung over her arm, all he had witnessed having plunging necklines and high slits. Charles rubbed his eyes and sighed again. A battle was sure to ensue, as she would no doubt want him to approve of whatever dress she favored, and he knew for sure that he most certainly would not.

And so, as he followed her into the dressing rooms, the battle had begun.

Her first choice was a blue number that matched perfectly with her eyes, but, as Charles thought it would, exposed nearly everything, making him cringe as she observed how she looked from all angles. "Well?" she asked him. "No," was his authoritative reply. She pouted a bit, but, thankfully, she didn't put up much of a fight, as he suspected she wasn't overly fond of the piece either.

For the better part of an hour Raven darted in and out of her fitting area, coming out to show Charles her favorites, and impressing him with none. She would argue why each dress was absolutely wonderful for her, and he would counter with all the reasons why it wasn't until Raven nearly shouted, when she had shown him her last choice, him gracing it with a grimace: "Charles, it's beautiful!"

"Its beauty would be greater still if there were more of it! We came here to get you a gown, not a shredded cocktail dress!"

"You're not my mother you know! You don't get to tell me what I can and can't wear!"

"Raven please, I don't mean to lead you about like a child, but God forbid that dress gets caught in a door jam or is stepped on, it will fall right off with little resistance!"

"But..."

"Excuse me...is there anything that I can help the two of you with?"

"Thank God, reinforcements," Charles thought as he turned to face the clerk. "Yes, please, if you will, convince my sister that this here dress is..."

His gaze fell on her pale, angular features, and the moment he looked into her dark brown eyes he saw it. He _felt _it.

She was as they were.

She was a mutant.

Realizing he had been staring without speaking far too long by how uncomfortable the little clerk was becoming, or _Leticia_ as she was called, he merely started right where he had left off.

"Yes, yes, if you please, try and convince my sister that the dress she has on now is certainly not the best a lady could sport on an evening out." He was sure to say this while giving her his most charming smile to ease her anxiousness, but it only served to make the poor woman blush madly and nearly take off running. Raven rolled her eyes. "She didn't even ask for my preferences in a dress," she pouted. "For which we all can be grateful," Charles murmured distractedly as he grabbed his sister's wrist and pulled her into the tiny fitting room along with him.

"Hey! Ow! Charles! Let go!"

"The store clerk who was just here," Charles announced as he hurriedly shut the door. "Yeah?" Raven asked.

"Raven...Raven, she's one of us." For once that day his sister went completely silent. But not for long. "She's...a mutant?"

"From what I felt and saw, yes indeed," he answered a bit breathlessly.

"...Oh my god! OH MY GOD! What's her mutation? What can she do?" Raven bounced up and down as a little girl would, clapping her hands in joy.

Charles had to admit, he too felt outrageously giddy. Even now, as he was sequestered in this tiny fitting area, he could feel the energy pulsing from the little clerk that was now searching for a dress to fit his sister. He had never felt anything quite like it, its thrum almost hypnotically soothing to his telepathic reach, but, as he noticed while Raven continued to spout off questions, if he reached too far in an attempt to sink deeper into her mind he would hit a wall of...static? By the gods, what was it?

Charles was sorely tempted to burst forth from the fitting rooms, expose to this Leticia that she had a most remarkable gift, and then cross examine and question her on every single detail about herself and ask when she had noticed the development of her mutation. But no! He had to ease into this. This was the first time he had ever encountered another that was like himself besides Raven all those years ago, and he didn't want to chance scaring her away.

"Helllloooooo? Charles, you in there? C'mon! Tell me what she can do!" Raven pestered. Charles had to think on that.

When he had caught the clerk's shy gaze, a whole plethora of images had seemed to float up to him. He saw streaks of lightening claw at the sky, rays of sunshine diminish a gloomy haze, clouds bruised black and grey swallowing colorful horizons; he had heard the blasts of thunder, the howling of icy winds. Before he had sent her on finding the dress, one last image lingered in the space between them that he had felt his telepathy latch onto, as though it were a butterfly that he was eager to catch so that he could examine its wings.

It seemed to be a memory she had of herself; in it Charles saw her, her dark head bent over what looked like a dress made from a rich, scarlet fabric. Her bony fingers held a needle with thread, and she seemed so very intent on her work, not once pausing in her motions of sewing.

And with that image a feeling of loneliness broke forth, for a moment being so strong that it nearly swept Charles' heart from his chest and threatened to crush it beneath its swift, yet torrential current. He had to stop himself from going into that memory any further, lest he himself began to reflect the tiny woman's powerful emotion and break out into impassioned sobbing, thus frightening the hell out of everyone.

But yes, back to Raven's question.

"I think..."

"Um...excuse me. I have your dress," a quiet voice said behind the door.

Both siblings nearly jumped ten feet straight into the air when hearing the topic of their conversation interrupt their musings. Raven gave Charles a panicked look, but took control of the situation for the meantime. "Thank you," she told the woman as she opened the door, Charles in the background trying very hard not to lose all composure and explode with questions for her.

Raven peered at the dress given her, and couldn't help but examine it critically. The gown was made from a gorgeous green silk, but other than that it had long sleeves, no slit, and the front looked like it was made to hide everything. It's only redeeming quality was that it had an open back. It was a tent for crying out loud! Raven couldn't help but wonder if Charles had given the mutant clerk a subconscious, mental suggestion to pick something like this, instead of the styles she preferred.

Raven looked to Leticia and blushed a bit, feeling a little ashamed for her silent disapproval of the clerk's choice, but surprisingly received a warm smile in return. "I know it may not look much," she said after clearing her throat, "but give it a try. A lady needs a dress that she can wear, and not a dress that wears her." Raven couldn't help but smile at her words, a little confused as to what they meant, but eager to see if she was right or not. "Well, guess there's no harm in trying," she said before gliding back into her dressing room.

The moment the door shut on them, Charles couldn't help but address the little lady next to him, even if it would just be with small talk and not with the monumental announcement he wanted to make from the rooftops. "Thank you...," he paused after giving his gratitude, waiting for her to introduce herself, despite already knowing her name.

She looked at him blankly for a moment, but then blushed in embarrassment as she realized he was waiting for a name. "Leticia," she tittered, wishing he would stop smiling in that way so that she could stop blushing.

"Charles. And yet again, thank you for your help. You know doubt heard the raging battle between my sister and I earlier; forgive us if we were bothering you and your customers."

"Oh no, not at all... Spirited thing, isn't she?"

"You have no idea, but..."

"Could I get a little help here," called Raven behind the door. "Yes of course," replied Leticia instantly, eager to do anything else instead of talking to her handsome acquaintance.

She slipped into the room, and Raven lifted her blonde mane away so that she could tend to the zipper at the dress's back. Once zipped up, Raven observed how the green material clung to her form. Her reflection nearly took her breath away.

The gown was a perfect fit, and Raven couldn't help but admire how it made her look both sleek and elegant, and yet the deep green of the fabric would most definitely make her stand out. The sleeves were comfortable, and yet the opening back was daring without trying too hard. The piece ended at her feet in a perfect pool of green: she had to show Charles!

Raven flung the door open with a bright smile and asked "So? What do you think?" The way his blue eyes lit up said it all. This was the dress, and now she knew what the clerk that chose it for her meant by wearing the dress, and it not wearing her. She owned this thing, like she would the crowd on Friday night!

"Thank you, um..."

"Leticia," both the lady and Charles said at the same time.

"Leticia. Thank you again! I thought we were going to have to shop around all day for something both me and his majesty over there would approve of!" This time it was Charles' turn to blush, and Leticia couldn't help but let out her warm smile once again. "You're welcome. I'm glad that I could be of service," she said with a slight bob of her head, a signal that she was soon to scurry away to help other customers.

"Hey, wai...," Raven nearly got out as Leticia took her leave, but Charles gently shushed her. "I'll explain everything once we get your dress paid for and the both of us back at my office." Raven didn't know why he wanted to wait to confront Leticia about being a mutant, as he was just a few minutes ago jumping up and down like a child that had won every prize at a carnival, but let it go for now.

As the dress was being carefully bagged, Raven couldn't help but look around the store for Leticia, catching a glimpse or two of her swiftly going from customer to customer while meekly offering advice and suggestions in regards to the clothing. Charles however had his gaze set straight before him as Raven placed her arm in his when leaving the shop, looking as though the weight of the entire world was resting upon his brilliant mind.

* * *

><p>"So she can control the weather!" Raven exclaimed. She could understand her and Charles' mutations, but a mutation that controlled the forces of nature?<p>

There was a gene for that?

Raven's imagination ran away with images of fierce gods and goddesses perched on rocky outcrops overlooking the sea, willing the turbulent skies overheard to pour rain all the while they used the lightening to punish people, burn down houses, basically just scaring the crap out of everyone epically; that's what came to mind when thinking of someone who could control the weather. But now Charles was insisting that that mousy store clerk had that kind of power! Wonders never cease, do they?

Charles made a face at her from across his desk. "No need to be uncharitable towards the woman. I found her to be meek in a sweet way."

"Hey! No reading my thoughts!"

"I can't help but hear you when you broadcast that loudly. Anyway, I thought you liked her. You seemed to well enough when she found you that dress."

"I did! It all just seems a little surprising is all. I'd always imagine meeting other people like us and seeing what they could do, but I never even thought of weather control. It's actually kind of amazing," Raven rambled. Charles smiled. "It is. The unfortunate thing is she doesn't truly realize the extent of that power."

"You mean she doesn't realize she's affecting everything around her?"

"Oh no, she does, but she doesn't know that she's a mutant, nor what she has is a gift. She can't decide whether she's angelic or demonic." Raven twitched slightly at the word 'demonic'.

"What else did you get from her?"

Charles remembered all the scenes of turbulent winds and rains from her mind, remembered her self-image sewing the scarlet dress, but other than that all other thoughts came to him glossed over with a blur. It felt as if he ever attempted to pry within her mind further he would be shocked by a shield of static electricity enveloping all her secrets.

Perhaps that was caused by the steady hum of energy pulsing from the core of her being that he felt whenever she would approach. "Not much. I admit, I had some difficulty seeing into her mind; it was as though I was trying to peer through a window being obscured by fog. I also didn't want to invade her privacy completely either. Well, tomorrow I shall go back to Katherine's Dress Shop and..."

"Oh no you're not. I'm going. Alone."

Charles' infamous eyebrow shot up immediately.

Raven knew how to get her way most of the time where he was concerned, but not when it had to do with his love for the genetic wonders of their emerging species! "Oh? And just when did it occur to you that you should go alone and kick the professor of genetics to the curb on this one." Raven's brows shot up in a counter to Charles'. "When it occurred to me that...what was her name again?"

"Leticia."

"That Leticia seemed really uncomfortable around you. And remember, you're not a professor yet! Even if you were, that still wouldn't help. C'mon Charles! You saw how shy she was, and I could tell right away that she's the type to be extra shy around men; even if it was one that meant absolutely no harm like you. Let me go over there and see what happens! It's not like I'm going to go up to her and say 'Hey! You're a mutant, and so am I! Let's be friends!' I just feel she'd warm up to me faster than she would you," she finished with an apologetic grin.

Charles loathed to admit it, but in remembering back on how the poor lady blushed furiously while he tried to talk to her, as well as how she stammered in his presence and seemed very much in a hurry to get away from him, Raven was right. Charles heaved a disappointed sigh.

"Alright, alright," Charles said as he tried to ignore the way Raven straightened out her posture as a salute to her victory. "But what reason will you give her for going back to the shop to speak to her besides another 'thank you' for the dress? I would imagine she would be a bit suspicious if you just went over there for the sake of wanting a conversation."

Raven looked at the dress that was laid out carefully on the couch, the green silk peeking out of the paper and plastic that it was carefully wrapped in.

"You mentioned before we got here that she made this dress?"

"That she did."

Raven turned to Charles with an impish spark in her eyes. "I've got an idea."


End file.
